Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

GM just announced it's strategy to cut costs and remain competitive (or as everyone sees it, trying to stay alive).

One thing I found interesting is that they are closing the plant down in Oshawa Ontario. That particular plant has been ranked number 1 in product quality.

One of GM's major problems in the market is quality control and a reptutation as not having the best quality cars to begin with. What is the message they are sending to consumers and employees when they close their number one plant?

Always close foreign plants first if your main sales is at home, I think.

We need a GM person in here.....I do know that it will affect EDS employees as well.

Originally posted by Ron Jeremy
Always close foreign plants first if your main sales is at home, I think.
Not necessarily. Depends a lot on the unions, labor pay scales, and rate of exchange.

Originally posted by botankus
Not necessarily. Depends a lot on the unions, labor pay scales, and rate of exchange.

those points are saliant but if it's the number one plant... It's the number one plant

Originally posted by Ron Jeremy
those points are saliant but if it's the number one plant... It's the number one plant
It's only number one in product quality, not profit.

Originally posted by botankus
It's only number one in product quality, not profit.

ahh my bad...ok

I think Botankus is right: they're closing the plants with the least-profit first, that would be the smart thing to do.

If it is cheaper for me as GM to produce my cars in Vietnam (e.g.) and then ship them to the US than it is for me to build them in the US. Then it is only logical that I close my US plants first.

We gonna all be farmers..........UHHHHGGG!!

Not sure if anyone's noticed, but China has really made a move in the global manufacturing market. They labor rate is ridiculously low...so low that if you want to keep your plant open in the states (for example) you would have to beat their product plus shipping cost, and that's hard to do.

Of course, in the long-term, China will simply get Unions and will normalise with everyone else.

Yea, I'm pretty sure Ush made a valid point there. But I think in Belgium (dunno other countries there situations that well but that might be similar) Industry will end up at about the same level as agriculture: 3.5% of the employers and a ridiculously low % of the our National Income.

Actually - I agree with Ush that China will eventually normalise and by 2020 be the second most successful "capitalist" economy on Earth Eventually the first by 2030.

Well, a main consumer criticisim about GM products is their quality. It looks bad when they end up closing the best regarded plant when it comes to quality when the consumers have stated their opinon on the issue.

It's like saying, " well we know we we're going down the sh*tter. And we know that our product is far from the best. So we've decided to make our product with less people and of those people, none of the ones who were doing a great job in the first place. This sound business strategy will only serve to increase the consumers' confidence in our product."

Originally posted by KharmaDog
Well, a main consumer criticisim about GM products is their quality. It looks bad when they end up closing the best regarded plant when it comes to quality when the consumers have stated their opinon on the issue.

It's like saying, " well we know we we're going down the sh*tter. And we know that our product is far from the best. So we've decided to make our product with less people and of those people, none of the ones who were doing a great job in the first place. This sound business strategy will only serve to increase the consumers' confidence in our product."

It reminds me a bit of the Leyland problems in the UK nearly 30 years ago - except we had major Union trouble also and BL had been nationalised but the quality thing is similar

British Leyland Motor Corporation
The British Leyland Motor Corporation ("BLMC", was a vehicle manufacturing company formed in Britain in 1968. Ultimately it would become nationalized as British Leyland then known just as BL.


History

BLMC, later to become just "BL" was created from the merger of British Motor Holdings and Leyland Motor Corporation, to combine most of the remaining British car manufacturing companies. These two companies were the results of mergers themselves. The corporation included car, bus and truck manufacturers and more diverse enterprises including construction equipment, refrigerators, metal casting companies, road surface manufacturers; in all nearly 100 different companies.

The company became an infamous monument to the industrial turmoil that plagued Britain in the 1970s. At its peak, BL owned nearly 40 different manufacturing plants across the country. Rivalry between the individual marques which had previously been competitors prior to the merger resulted in a product range which was incoherent and full of duplication. This, combined with serious industrial relations problems (principally, the company's relations with hard-line Socialist Trade Unions of the time), and ineffectual management meant that BL became an unmanageable and financially crippled behemoth whose bankruptcy in 1975 was inevitable.

Many of the brands were divested over time and continue to exist to this day, although the British Leyland name came to an end in 1982. From Austin to Morris the most direct heir of the company was the MG Rover Group which collapsed in April 2005.